Terra Incognita
by ncfan
Summary: /Ishida x Orihime/ The story of a girl who's afraid to speak and a boy who holds everyone he loves at arm's length. The only comfort they can find when they can't go back and haven't come home is this.


**Characters**: Orihime, Ishida**  
Summary**: The story of a girl who's afraid to speak and a boy who holds everyone he loves at arm's length, and the only comfort they can find when they can't go back and haven't come home is this.**  
Pairings**: IshiHime**  
Warnings/Spoilers**: Spoilers for Hueco Mundo arc. T for angst.**  
Timeline**: Some time after they all get back from Hueco Mundo.**  
Author's Note**: Just a pointless little drabble. It sort of acts as a companion to _Mind's Eye_ and _Physician, Heal Thyself_; you don't have to read them to understand this, but it might clarify a couple of issues. References the last segment of my oneshot _Mea Culpa_, which, I should add, otherwise has very little to do with this. So you don't have to read _Mea Culpa _to understand this; I just assume you would because you love me. Right? _Right?_**  
Disclaimer**: I don't own Bleach.

* * *

Orihime is starting to be able to tell when Ishida's been with his father. The smell of cigarette smoke clings to his clothes and his hair (Orihime's briefly met the elder Ishida and knows from that encounter that he smokes cigarettes fairly frequently) and his face is more pallid than usual and noticeably strained. She wonders if Ryuuken is entirely aware of the effect he has on his son.

As Orihime comes and stands beside Ishida, leaning against a high brick wall that borders the sidewalk of an empty street, she takes note that the coat he's wearing doesn't fit right in the shoulders. If anything, it seems to be a bit big on him in general, swallowing up his arms and his shoulders.

"Hello, Inoue-san." Ishida has gone back to being his normal, standoffish self, and Orihime wishes she didn't know why. Hurt pride and fear is only a small part of it, and the larger part is the reason he won't meet her eyes now.

Moments of silent weakness back on Hueco Mundo has all but destroyed whatever measure of comfortable closeness the two enjoy. Ishida, Orihime knows, regrets it, and knows just as well that there's no way to go back now; Orihime regrets far more that Ishida seems to have fallen back on the air of closed-off secrecy that he had adopted when they first met. It's sad, that one can come so far but still fall away with such alarming speed.

Orihime opens her mouth to speak, but words fail her, not rising from her throat and refusing to form in her mind. She can't think of anything to say, and even if she could, Orihime doubts she could find the courage to say what is needed.

He's stopped moving forming, and must either be forced into the light or die in the dark, but then, Orihime feels the same way. _How can you move on, knowing you can't go back? How can you live with your mistakes, knowing that one is all it takes to ruin everything? How can you go home, when nowhere is home anymore? How can you live, when everything has changed?_

The words echo through the confines of her mind, and they accuse Orihime of her failings, telling her that she needs to be stronger, needs to change, needs to grow up and needs to rise to the next challenge, which is fast approaching on the heels of the coming storm.

She doesn't realize that she's actually spoken out loud until Ishida turns and looks at her. His eyes are narrowed in what Orihime realizes is intense sadness, sympathy, that entire confused jumble of emotions that are so new to him, and a strangely tender concern. "…" Ishida too struggles for words, but sooner finds them than Orihime.

"Inoue-san…" His voice is pained, taut with indecision. Ishida stops looking at her, tearing his eyes away from her face only reluctantly. "…You make a new life," he says finally. "What you've lost, you mourn, but you let go of. It's the only way to survive." Ishida doesn't sound any more sure of this answer than Orihime feels.

They have no answers, would like to pretend that they did, but really, they don't. There are no answers for the questions Orihime has asked, and Ishida knows it.

Orihime blinks hard, her eyes burning dry, and wraps her arms around her small frame, hugging herself to keep the cold and the shadows of past lives lived within the confines of sixteen years at bay, and Ishida notices.

He raises his hand, as if to touch her shoulder, but thinks better of it and lets his hand fall limply to his side. Ishida momentarily bites his lip and then looks away, slipping back into the form of an isolated, aloof teenager.

Orihime understands something of Ishida's mindset and faintly masochistic mentality (misery loves company), and can guess at the jumbled thoughts that must be running through his mind now.

_Look, but don't touch. Don't _ever_ touch. How far is too far, and how long can I skirt the line before it drives me mad?_ And fears about her breaking like glass in his hands, cutting open the skin of his hands and being the death of her in the process. Despite knowing her strength, he still harbors these fears, more to his own detriment than hers.

Knowing her own strength, Orihime doesn't like being treated as though she's made of glass.

The hand Ishida's allowed to fall lame at his side Orihime grabs tightly in her own. Ishida makes no attempt to wrench his hand from her grasp, and even if he did, it wouldn't have worked.

Her grip is strong.

Orihime smiles. It feels so strange on her face, and she realizes, shocked and taken aback, that she hasn't really smiled since before Hueco Mundo, but she really is smiling. It's a bit lame for a smile, wavering and flickering like ripples in a pond, but it's real, the only thing she knows to be real anymore.

The look adorning Ishida's face now is deeply conflicted, as his head swivels sharply around and his eyes, faintly incredulous but more showing the emotions he can no longer hide behind a guarded mask, fixate on her face. "Inoue-san, I wanted to—"

She cuts him off, leaning up with her free arm and hugging him. Ishida, who is frankly unused to being hugged, stiffens in shock for a moment (and Orihime is glad she can't see his face when she does that, because she's sure that whatever flabbergasted expression he's wearing would make her laugh), before he relaxes, letting out a surprisingly pressurized breath of air, and slides his free arm across her back.

He stinks of cigarette smoke.

Orihime doesn't care.


End file.
